Crossroads

Today we stand at the crossroads, not only to preserve our cultural and economic values, but also humanity as a whole. Though the continuing geo-political tension, economic meltdown and loss of cultural diversity present a bleak view of the world, it also presents immense opportunities to bring changes in the world, as we see it today. Humanity has been able to survive lot of hardship and tough times including some very harsh calamities in the past. It is this competitiveness and urge for continuous survival, which we need to rediscover today to build a better planet for the future.

However, problems we see today have their roots in the very economic system that we have developed and take pride in. No doubt it has created immense opportunities for wealth creation and global communications; it has also created problems like global poverty, unsustainable resource extraction, undermining cultural diversity and loss of dignity. In fact if we weigh all these factors appropriately, we may conclude that world has become a better place to live in only for few, for the majority it has actually become worse. A recent experiment** by two graduate student from U.Penn and MIT helped them understand the “battlefield of survival — a life of tough choices and tall constraints” when they tried to live like how 75% Indians live every day.

It thus represents a more compelling case for the businesses, which are undoubtedly the most prominent and influential institutions of the modern world, to undertake more holistic approaches towards human development. They now need to shift gears to start building products and services for the proportion of humanity which unfortunately is more than 70% of world’s population, but still deprived of basic needs. When I talk about shifting gears, it doesn’t simply mean to start building products that businesses think the BoP customers would buy. Instead, they need to understand the needs of the people instead of merely corporate growth; to create new markets instead of pitching existing market strategies; to work alongside people, instead of sending directives from the high rise glass buildings; to conceive new business paradigms instead of relying on jargon based deterministic management techniques; and more importantly understand the value of the product from the eyes of the customers instead of weighing it in terms of the financial value for the firm. This new process of redefining the business sense requires the firm to decentralize decision making, have more risk taking capability in order to discover the gold mine (not only for itself, but also for the customers it serves), unleash creativity of the people by allowing its own in-house talent to mingle with the to-be customers to help define the problem, envision the product/services as a solution and ultimately build the social capital that is local. This would allow the customers to identify themselves with the product and bring the sense of ownership. But why exactly is it necessary? I recall an incident when JacquelineNovogratz, founder of AcumenFund, gave a newly designed solar lamp (for BoP customers) to a lady, a small shop owner in suburban areas of Noida (India), for free. The lady used the product and found it useful in doing her daily household chores. However, when offered to buy the lamp the next time, she refused. The cause was simple; she has never been offered a product/service any time before merely because of her own needs, but because of vested interests of others (in her terms, the rich). It is this lack of confidence of people in the businesses which we need to bridge to be able to work in such scenarios.

It involves working with local institutions, sometimes formal, many a times informal. To work for the customers, businesses need to work with them. This is the very subtle point to understand while framing business strategies to approach such markets. Businesses need to suspend their old market research strategies and instead go into the villages, experience the lifestyle, look at the household patterns, the patterns of spending and to identify how to build the products that fit the households and not disrupt them. One of the major reasons for backlash against capitalism and globalization is the loss of cultural norms and identity (as more and more people join the formal money economy). The products thus built should not be acting as disrupting agents in the society; however they should be carefully crafted by listening to the people, learning from their own solutions and hitting the sweet spot that forges an alliance.

The better world awaits us.

*  Blog title is inspired by Stuart Hart’s book “Capitalism at the Crossroads”.

** Reader is encouraged to read the experiment (URL embedded)

Path towards the ‘Sustainable’ World !

Sustainability is one of the foremost concern that humanity faces today. Stuart Hart in his book, Capitalism at Crossroads discusses about some of the frameworks that can be used to develop sustainable strategies.

Hart also discusses about how Worlds are in collision and how money economy is encroaching on nature’s economy and making undeniable and many a times not so welcoming changes in local markets/culture. Later he suggests how corporations can obtain real benefits by building a balanced sustainability portfolio. However, all these efforts require a holistic view of the scenario and any reductionist approach would not solve the problem in the longer term.

I would like to argue that since we are trying to fix the externalities created by the businesses, we need to focus on fundamental premises on which the businesses are built, since we inherit the business frameworks from times when sustainability was not an issue. Going back in time, during the imperial era, all the imperial powers were focussed on extracting as much resources from occupied territories to bring wealth back home, without paying any attention to the local communities and environmental impact. In fact many bigger corporations that exist today were found during the pre world war era.

Businesses today are defined by their ability to make profits. Profits as we know today is measured in terms of monetary performance. Given that we need to re look how we conduct business, we may need to redefine our definition of profit (which is actually inherited from imperial times and before). New definition of value(profit) might include not only economic value but ‘societal value’, encompassing all the three economies(money economy, traditional economy and nature’s economy). Michael Porter, professor at HBS terms this as ‘shared value‘, while Umair, a blogger at HBR, in his book ‘The New Capitalist Manifesto‘  termed this as ‘thick value‘. The idea is essentially the same, unless we redefine the basic premise to do business, we cannot change the outcome beyond a certain threshold. It would require more fundamental rethinking of the pillars of business.

However to do that and make businesses believe that they are actually creating value, we need to come up similar complex mathematical models and metrics to keep track of ‘value‘ created by corporations and any benefits that can be extended to them.

Making businesses choose more green strategies and create new technologies and efficient processes seems to me that they still lack the vision of the future. This is because, though they are trying to change how a particular business functions, but zooming out of the picture, still doesn’t fundamentally change the business scenario, where profits are primarily driven by economic benefits and which augments human behaviour of greed.

Measuring economic profit is a well established science. However, it is really cumbersome to come up with any generic model to measure ‘societal value‘ as it may depend on geographies and local culture. This would create some non-deterministic calculations of profit which corporations are inherently opposed to, since they work better in deterministic world defined by proper laws. Therefore to solve the problem of sustainability it is important to develop frameworks that provides a metric based approach to measure ‘societal value’ without undermining the current economic benefits to the corporations.

To conclude, I believe, to be able to measure the ‘value‘ created by businesses and disseminate that information to the stakeholders can bring about change in the way businesses function, and wipe out the problem of sustainability, as we know it today.

Subjective and Objective

Subjectivity and Objectivity have always been the two faces of human knowledge, vision, understanding and actions. There are probably the two facets everything – subjective and objective.

Subjective mind, which wants to comprehend the world by self realization, consciousness and is open to different interpretations of same objects viewed through different lenses. Subjective mind is open to dialogues, amalgamation of ideas and presents a generic world view that may clash with other person’s subjective opinions.

Objective mind, on the other hand, is bound to (mostly) physical properties of the object, given to oneness of the view and devoid of any individual interpretations. Objective mind considers a view of reality as the only possible and the true view of reality.

Throughout the human history, there have been ideological clashes between the subjective and objective views of the world and ourselves. The fact that we possess a highly sophisticated brain gives birth to subjectivity, but the possession of human body gives rise to the objective world view.

This clash is more evident by studying the ‘progress’ or ‘regress’ of human race. Progress of objectivism and regress of subjectivism. Lack of materialistic pleasures in the ancient world had prompted the human mind to look for inner realization, understanding of natural surroundings and finding the true nature of human mind. However, the same thoughts with subjective bent allowed man to reason the natural phenomenon and identify the prospects of progress to enhance the standard of living. The quest for better standards of living has taken human race to heights of scientific progress. This has truly shaped the thinking of people who have access to tools which were not possible in any recorded human history.

Objective comes from the word ‘Object’ meaning a tangible entity. It is open to experience without the involvement of surroundings and thoughts.

The clashes have been between Religion and Science, where Religion gives the subjective view and Science adheres to objective view of reality.

These clashes are also evident by studying various cultures and their interaction. East is about spiritualism and West is about materialism. Spiritualism translates to subjectivism, and materialism to objectivism.

However, hardly any of our actions are devoid of either, because by nature, human body completes the human brain and vice-versa. Though clashing, these views complement each other and put forth the wholesomeness.

It is always in the collaboration and cooperation that we find the completeness of actions and thoughts. Never will science achieve its goals adhering to its own view, nor will religions if they restrict people from enjoying the fruits of mother Earth.

It is always be that people from east will go to west in search of material goods, at the same time when people from west are traveling towards east to find the true meanings beyond objectivism, yearning for completeness.

East completes the West. Science completes the Religion. Body completes the mind. It is this search for completeness that will help us determine the true meaning of our lives and true destiny of humanity.

Small World

Earth together with its people and nature forms the world. Today’s technological progress has made possible the mobility of man between places, has increased means of communication between people and has truly shaped the way we interact with each other and the nature. However, all the technological progress comes at a cost. Therefore it is easier to say that world has become smaller for the elite, because larger portion of one of the important parts of world, its people, are still devoid of use of that technology, because of their inability to pay for it. So one can travel around the world but at a cost, which is high. I stay in India, but travel to native place only once a year due to reasons of cost and time required to travel. The technology that has allowed me to travel outside prohibits me to go back often due to high cost. Effectively, the world is still the same for me.

We can also understand the argument in terms of geopolitical issues of the world. Taking an example of North and South Korea, two neighboring countries where the only way North Koreans can travel to South Korea is by travelling about 3000 kilometers crossing China and Thailand. Further it often takes months to few years of labor in China to collect the money required for travel, due to high cost. South Korea is only few hundred kilometers from the opposite extremes of North Korea. But the world indeed is very large for a North Korean trying to cross over to South.

The world would become small the day man would overcome its personal desires to understand the world better and truly work towards making it a better and smaller place to live. I think that world is still a distant dream.

PS: My reasoning can be flawed, but I am Human.

Minding Business

Everyone should mind its own business. But what business are we talking about. If we take ‘business’ in the literal sense, the statement falls flat, for there is no business in singular sense. However, I must emphasize here, that minding other’s business is an intellectual affair.

I read a quote sometime back saying – ‘business of business is business’. So you got to do anything that does your business. What I can see in India today, is everybody is minding their own businesses and to an extent quite well. So a bakeryvala minds his own business, mall owner minds his own business, workers mind their own business, owners mind their own business, and then there is a large chunk who is searching for business.

But when we talk about this large chunk, not having business and searching for business and trying to set up a business and then not able to do business, we all must understand, that we got to do more than own businesses.

I am often struck by the thought, that if population of the world goes down to say 10,000, and mind you the resources on earth remain the same, price for everything dramatically goes down, may be to zero. So we prosper because of ‘we’. Once I say say ‘I prosper’, it surely would bring the value down. I don’t know what value I am talking about, , but it will come down, whatever that might be.

And when it is ‘we’, there is some business. So minding others business is an art and exhibit of intellect and more precisely, what demands to be the profession of wise. However, in the modern era, minding others business is not recommended, is considered breaching others space, and person trying to do so might be marginalized. And everything at the cost of intellect.

We probably have to learn how to manage others business, and importantly have to understand the importance of managing others business. Minding only one’s own business, I think, is for morons.

Disruptive Minds

All through my reading hours I have come across various things that are disruptive in nature. I have read about disruptive technology, disruptive innovation etc. Googling the term “disruptive” gives you more options related to that.

Still there is one important thing missing. Where are the DISRUPTIVE MINDS ?

After all, all the other things that are disruptive, happen due to human minds. Still we don’t discuss these minds. The closest  “disruptive” gets to humans is “Disruptive behavior disorder”. 

Why is there such a low emphasis and negative attitude towards minds that can think disruptively?

These minds will take us forward in times to come. However, these minds pose risk to current structures in political, economic and cultural spheres. These minds would think very differently and mostly away from things in their current forms. Therefore, when a handful of disruptive minds come the challenge the set structures, there is a clash.

History has been full of such examples, where disruptive minds have gained importance, again and again. Be it rise rise of Buddhism in a Hindu territory or scientific revolution in Europe.

There has been emergence of United States after World War II, Microsoft, Knighthood, Nobel Prize, Oscars etc. These all pertain to structures that were formed either in age of no competition or weak competition. Thereafter, they have always tried to create patterns which would allow most people to be with them, as they hold the power and resources, and inhibit actions of disruptive minds.

Civilizations have moved forward only due to disruptive minds, otherwise we would  still be in stone age.

However, in the modern era of globalization, it is easier for such structures to sustain for long, as they have control over people world wide, in better, effective and connected way. Just to cite an example, a decision by an investment banker in New York, USA, can cost a jute worker his job in Surat, India.

The world is so much connected that it is easier for people everywhere to interact.

But this, I guess is a boon for DISRUPTIVE Minds of our times.

BE DISRUPTIVE, you can shape the future !!

Tangible and NON-Tangible knowledge

We have for centuries now been looking towards west for knowledge in basic science and engineering. However, we in India do possess knowledge that West today aspires to know and benefit from, which pretty much points me to the point that what is the purpose of knowledge?

The knowledge is opening up of human mind to understand the deep relations between various surroundings. So we study mathematics, physics, engineering and medical sciences etc. to understand why are things the way they are, and how we can take a step further to utilize those to make our lives better.

But there is also a kind of knowledge which allows us to achieve something that we cannot see, which I will mark as non-tangible knowledge.

Various ancient cultures were primarily working towards gaining non-tangible knowledge because that is what, they believed, would be the enduring source of happiness. However, they failed to understand the world as it was, to a larger extent as we understand it today, by identifying some basic laws that pretty much govern the whole world.

So those ancient cultures laid emphasis on GOD, how he effects the day-to-day events in our lives and so on. Today we understand those events (though not in totality), but fail to recognize how we can make our lives happier and merrier by laying emphasis on events that can be enduring sources of happiness to us .

Tangible Knowledge

This type of knowledge enables us to understand the facts of the world that we can see,  touch and most likely understand. The tangible knowledge allows us to take advantage of our understanding of the common facts of this world and create better goods and services which we can trade and thus making lives of everyone easier and happier. We can take a simple example here: Newton identified the law of gravitation, Einstein took that knowledge still further by formulating more complicated and mathematical theory to understand the laws of gravity and in general physics. Other men took advantage of that knowledge and later we created air-crafts and space-shuttles.  Biologists have made greater than ever progress in understanding of human body and mind and create surgical methods that benefit all human beings. This knowledge has created cars, cement, steel and so many things that have become indispensable part of our lives today, that if you take them away, we would just go back to stone-age.

Non-Tangible Knowledge

This type of knowledge, as I categorize it, enables us to understand the facts of life that are still beyond the reaches of Tangible Knowledge. This knowledge basically emanates from ancient texts from all the civilizations world-wide.

Ancient people were able to understand few things like us, as we do today. Greeks for instance knew about Jupiter, and had named a GOD after it. Indians knew about 9 planets and about lot of calculations about them. But they could never formalize a theory for complete understanding in scientific terms.

This knowledge primarily focuses on things that can be achieved in this life, but with almost no probability of yielding tangible results. These achievements can be bigger accomplishments in one’s life, but would fail to garner any major appreciations from many people.

It will allow staying focused on your family, on peace of mind because ultimately these are the sources of happiness in one’s life. Today people worldwide focus on YOGA* exercises, only to attain peace and health of mind and body. These practices were born thousands of years before any scientific revolution.

People worldwide recognize the importance of YOGA today, still world has to come up with an accounting technique to measure the impact, if a person instead of YOGA (for 1 hour) would have spent the same in office, and how much business got impacted and things like that.

Some things in this knowledge are simply beyond the perspectives of our world, as we look at it today. Therefore the statement above looks foolish, as everybody understands what impact YOGA has on one’s life, and it (many other similar things) has never to be equated to some things like business numbers.

Pondering over such matters, I would suddenly realize that after the scientific revolution in the west and elsewhere afterward, mankind has never come with such techniques that transcends all the barriers and allow people to chant OM* (which is integral part of YOGA chanting and has proven benefits). We are just lost in the world of science that hampers anybody who tries to venture into the world that we cannot see, ONLY FEEL.

This would prompt me to emphasize: Science is BLIND. Human Beings are not.

*I mentioned about YOGA, simply because I know about it. There can surely be many such examples, I even don’t know of.